


Fire Under My Skin

by TheTyphonSerpent



Series: Clan Suledin [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Drinking, F/M, Romantic Tension, Slice of Life, oc dalish clan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 23:36:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16842697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTyphonSerpent/pseuds/TheTyphonSerpent
Summary: Lady Bug and Ivnar sneak into a human city to steal some alcohol.





	Fire Under My Skin

Clan Suledin’s aravels passed within riding distance of human cities approximately six times a year.

For Lady Bug and Ivnar, this meant approximately six times a year where they could have fun.

Getting into trouble became a game for them. Not enough trouble that they’d be monitored, but just enough trouble that they’d be assigned a menial chore to do. Cleaning the aravels or grooming the hallas was fitting grunt work for any mischievous teenage elf who slipped a snake into Fenron’s bed roll. After Keeper Sohon made Ivnar apologize, he’d be ushered off to whatever field the halla were grazing in.

While he brushed out tangled knots of snowy fur, wiped down antlers, and scraped dirt from beneath hooves, Bug would appear. She usually waited until after dinner, volunteering to take Ivnar his plate, but strategically forgetting to do so until half the clan had already scurried off to their respective beds. Travel bread and dried berries wrapped in a cloth. Perfect for eating on the road.

They arrived in the tiny human settlement just as the town’s only pub was reaching capacity. Those too tired or too young to drink had put away their hoes and scythes and were tucking themselves into bed. Sometime between Clan Suledin’s travels, the humans had managed to erect a crude wall. Trees stripped of branches and hammered into the ground, flush against one another. The tops sharpened to discourage climbing.

Not that it discouraged them.

Bug scaled a nearby pine tree until the top of it bent and swayed with her weight. It took rocking herself back and forth before it began to bend far enough, falling just over the steepled roof of the bell tower. The last few inches were free falling, a steady leap that landed her on the small tiled roof. The tree showered Ivnar with pine needles as it snapped back into place.

He scaled the tree while she shimmied down the steeple. By the time he reached it, she was already waiting for him on the lower roof, arms crossed, a grin brightening her face.

He crawled down legs first like a bear cub, only releasing his grip on the steeple when his feet were firmly on the roof.

She plucked a pine needle from his hair. Then another. And another, while he held perfectly still.

“Your fault.” He muttered.

“I wish I had hair that could get this much stuck in it.” She sighed, running her fingers through the waves of curls that reached past his shoulder blades, “It’s so thick. Why don’t you take care of it?”

He shrugged, “Kinda hard when you’re always the second one up the tree.”

“Oh, hush.” And with that, she gave his shoulder a push, “Next time move faster.”

She was the first to make for the edge of the roof and jump down, buckling her knees as she landed on the garden grass below. 

Ivnar shuffled along the edge of the roof until he found a pyramid of barrels laid out on their sides against the back wall. He let his feet dangle off the edge, then scooted down until he was dangling with his chest on the roof, feet inches away from the top barrel. He felt something plunk against his breeches.

Looking over his shoulder, he spied Bug with a handful of pebbles. She threw another one, hitting him in the back of the knee.

“Ow! Quit it!” He hissed and scooted himself another inch down. He felt another pebbled bounce off the top of his head.

“Ah!” He hissed again, just as the pad of his foot managed to find the top of the barrel. Another pebbled against his rump, and he was just lowering his other foot when he felt the barrel wobble. The whole tower went rolling away at once, his feet deftly coming out from under him. One of the barrels burst beneath him, bathing the ground and his clothes in grain.

A deep voice called from around the corner, “Who’s out there?”

Bug grabbed Ivnar’s hand and pulled him up. Their feet flew like bird wings, silent but swift. There was a grin plastered on her face all the while.

The pub windows were still bright by the time they rounded the corner to the back alley, stopping only once they were able to blend in with the shadows. 

There was never a lantern by the back door, though the ground was always damp with a combination of dishwater and vomit, and there was a smell from the waste barrel to match the mixture. She collapsed with her back against the wall, chest heaving but giggles bubbling up between pants.

Ivnar, doubled over with his hands on his knees, was less amused. No sooner did he catch his breath than did he swipe at her shoulder. She flinched, but continued giggling.

The conversation in the bar had slowed to a quiet buzz. The pair eventually slunk into the shadows past the waste barrel, where they waited until a familiar pair of boots was thundering through the pantry that shared the back wall. 

Droplets of dishwater dotted their heads as he emptied the tub he carried and then slammed the door shut.

That meant they had plenty of time to get in and out.

Ivnar shuddered when his bare feet stepped onto the stone floor of the basement. Cold and damp, peeling wood shelves holding up all matter of meats and cheeses the bartender would use in the coming days. Whole finches and rabbits hung from the ceiling by their legs. He yanked down one of the rabbit corpses as he passed it.

Bug turned, her palms out and raised an eyebrow. He shrugged. 

They found what they were looking for in the back, on the bottom shelf. He let her hand him whatever bottles she selected, only in each hand so the glass wouldn’t click together when they snuck back out.

Back onto the roof they’d landed on, in the shadows of the steeple, where nobody would wander unless the bell somehow stopped working. All four bottles lined up on the edge, brass bell casting reflections of the stars onto their backs. They set the rabbit corpse beside them. To a crude teenage mind it looked a bit like the rabbit was chasing the bottles.

“Okay you’re secretly a genius. Now if we’re caught we’ll just tell Keeper Sohon we were hunting.” Bug said with a wink.

She selected a bottle and pried off the cork with her dagger. She took the first swig, grimaced, and then passed the bottle to him.

When Ivnar was very small, he’d once been wading through one of the swampier parts of the Orlesian woods when a bug came up and bit him in the leg. While rubbing ointment on the bite mark, Keeper Sohon explained that the bug’s spit was venomous. The pulsing burn that had gone up his leg and forced him to collapse was the spit entering and traveling through his blood.

This was like that, only down his throat.

He only got in a single swallow before he coughed and held out the bottle for her to take from him. She had that light, airy giggle on her breath, the same one she had when she’d been picking pine needles out of his hair. She patted his back while she took another swig.

The more sips he took, he found, the more his throat went numb. They kept passing it until he spied a human stumbling out of the bar. The bottle paused at his lips, watching the hairy, bumbling man step over his own feet, his eyes glued to the ground. Ivnar felt a set of fingers running through his hair.

Bug produced a piece of grain, then another, pulling them down long strands of brown hair. She sighed, “You brush the hallas more than you do yourself.”

“Yours looks nice since you started growing it out.”

Her cheeks flushed a light shade of pink, and she ran her hand through the shaggy mop that curled around her ears. “Really?”

“Really. It’ll get as long as mine someday.”

She looked down, face just as red as his with the half-bottle of liquor they’d managed to drain. Settling her eyes on a rock, she lifted it and stood, pointing to the human that he’d been watching.

“Think I can hit him?” She asked.

“Please don’t.”

She threw the stone. It plucked the human in the back, causing him fall face-first into the dirt. Ivnar snorted a laugh, covered his mouth, and tried his best to laugh without raising his voice at all.

“You’re so funny and hot.” He said. He took another swig before passing the bottle to her as she sat down again.

“I know.” She replied and knocked back the bottle.

He could feel the heat of her skin against his where they sat. Their thighs were only a hair’s width away from one another, just like how they sat together while traveling.

Somehow it seemed different this time. His cheeks were flushed with more than just alcohol. Eyelids lowered, he leaned towards her, arm slowly reaching for her opposite hip.

Tearing the bottle away from her mouth, she used it to point at the human below. “Oh, creators, look, he can’t stand!”

He froze, eyes wide, his mouth a breath away from her cheek. Close enough to see every individual freckle on her cheeks. When he turned to look, the human was attempting to rise, only for his boot to slip so he had to catch himself with his hands.

“What an idiot.” She snickered, and passed him the bottle before falling onto her back, arms above her head, “I could hit him all night and he’d never look up. Humans can’t see what’s in front of their own faces.”

“Yeah … some people can’t.”


End file.
